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Book reviews. International migration and economic development.
Lessons from low-income countries
Antonio Martín Artiles
(Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 2008 14: 713, DOI:
10.1177/102425890801400419. The full version of this article can be found at:
http://trs.sagepub.com/content/14/4/713.citation)
The author of the influential research published in this book was a
member of the Expert Group on Development Issues (EDGI), a group of
international experts working in conjunction with the Swedish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. The research carried out by the EDGI contributed to the
development of the Ministry’s global development goals.
This book studies the increase in international migration over the past
20 years, which has led to migration assuming a key position on the political
agenda. Indeed, the EU has recognised the need to harmonise immigration
policy. The fact that the United Nations has created the Global Commission
on International Migration reflects the growing concern about the reality of
migration.
Lucas’ fascinating book is divided into three parts. The introduction
begins by analysing the context and determinants of migration. Lucas then
moves on to look at the economic repercussions of migration for
development in the migrants’ countries of origin, paying particular attention
to the emigration of highly skilled professionals and the cost of this brain
drain for local development. He also examines the influence of irregular
immigration on the host country. Finally, Lucas considers the economic
policy of the four main migration regimes. The four case study areas are the
European Union, North America, the Persian Gulf and East Asia.
The book addresses two main issues: immigration policy and its
features in the four major areas mentioned above, and the effects of
migration on economic development in both the sending and the receiving
country. Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth in immigration
across the OECD countries, whose level of economic development is a
powerful factor in attracting labour. Migration also appears to have a
profound effect on development in the migrants’ countries of origin. The
Washington Consensus agenda was geared towards promoting trade, but it
also led to the establishment of certain principles, such as the idea of ‘correct
prices’ aimed at preventing the devastating effects that trade liberalisation
can have on developing countries. The fact that remittances sent by migrants
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to their country of origin appear to have a critical influence on these
countries’ balance of payments is proof positive of the economic importance
of migration. Indeed, for some countries, remittances are the biggest or
second biggest source of foreign currency.
Migration to the EU
Lucas argues that the main challenge currently facing the EU is to
harmonise its immigration policy. The EU still does not have a well-defined
common immigration policy, despite the fact that some steps have been
taken in this direction, such as the 1985 Schengen Agreement that allowed
the free movement of persons initially within a small number of countries.
The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam laid the foundations for a European
immigration policy. The Treaty was followed by the Tampere, Laeken and
Seville European Council conclusions which continued to develop
recommendations concerning the problems associated with receiving new
streams of immigrants and guaranteeing them better working and living
conditions. Border controls to prevent ‘illegal immigrants’ from entering the
Union are another muchdebated issue in EU immigration policy.
Another challenge facing the EU is how to attract highly skilled
professional migrant workers, and the European Commission in 2007
proposed a Directive on this issue. Some countries, such as Germany,
receive large numbers of highly skilled immigrants.
Migration to the Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf Cooperation Council is formed by six nations:
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
These countries initiated a policy of recruiting foreign labour following the
1974 oil crisis that led to a rise in the price of oil per barrel, resulting in
increased oil revenue across the region. To begin with they recruited workers
from neighbouring Arab nations, before later turning to countries such as
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines and
Thailand.
Most of these immigrants are low-skilled men with few educational
qualifications who work mainly in the construction industry or doing other
kinds of manual labour, although women also migrate to these countries to
work in the household services sector. Officially, migrant workers receive
two-year fixed-term contracts to prevent them from settling and becoming
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permanently integrated into the host society, although in practice they stay
for an average of between four and five years. Migrant workers’ families are
only allowed to come out and join them in a very limited number of cases,
most of them highly skilled workers. Furthermore, it is practically
impossible for migrant workers to obtain citizenship.
The brain drain to North America
Immigration policy in the US and Canada forms a contrast with
Europe. First, both of these countries have a long tradition as countries of
settlement, and secondly they share the specific characteristic of having
experienced a recent increase in the number of immigrants with secondary or
higher education qualifications: 42% of adults born outside the US have a
secondary education qualification and 23% have post-graduate degrees.
These highly skilled immigrants are admitted on special visas known as H1
visas.
The influx of highly skilled professionals makes an important
contribution in the fields of research, teaching, management and
development in these two host countries. Meanwhile, for what Lucas
describes as ‘lower income countries’, the brain drain slows down their
endogenous development, since few of these migrants return to their country
of origin. Indeed, it could even be said that these highly skilled migrant
workers form an ‘international scientific elite’ that moves around between
the world’s most economically developed nations.
Migration transition in East Asia
The most developed economies in the East Asia region, such as Brunei,
Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, have also gradually
been turning into receiving countries. In other words, it can be said that
recent migration patters are ‘multicentric’ insofar as the migration stream is
distributed across different geographical regions that have a high level of
economic development and big cities. In the case of East Asia, there is a
high proportion of irregular immigrants coming mainly from the Philippines,
Indonesia and Vietnam.
On the other hand, there are some countries, such as India, that have
sought to limit the impact of the brain drain, for example by taking measures
to restrict the number of doctors who emigrate. One approach that has been
used is to limit the number of people doing postgraduate medicine degrees
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abroad, since there is always the risk that once they have obtained their
postgraduate degrees these people will simply stay on to work as doctors in
the country where they completed their studies.
Findings
One of Lucas’ most telling insights is his finding that in the four major
migration regimes studied in the book, both poor and rich countries concur
in their desire for migration to be temporary. The rich nations’ immigration
policies discourage migrant workers from settling and bringing their families
with them, indicating a preference for temporary migration. Rich nations are
keen on return migration in order to avoid the social and political problems
associated with integrating diverse cultures into their societies. The most
extreme version of this restrictive policy is found in the Persian Gulf, where
temporary contracts for migrant workers have always been the norm.
Curiously enough, however, the poor nations also favour return migration,
since they have a vested interest in migrant workers returning so that they
can recover resources, human capital and capital goods.
Finally, the author observes that it is only highly skilled professional
migrant workers who are welcomed by the host countries, and that this kind
of worker has been particularly important in North America and more
recently the EU, where efforts have been made to attract technicians,
engineers, researchers and postgraduate students. As far as the host countries
are concerned, these highly skilled migrants provide them with a source of
highly productive labour, but without the associated training costs.
Nevertheless, the main feature shared by the four migration regimes is that
irregular and unskilled migrant workers continue to predominate. In
conclusion, Lucas’ study presents an overview of migration against the
backdrop of globalisation, making it a fascinating and highly recommended
read.
Translation from the Spanish by Joaquín Blasco
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Crisis, economic uncertainty and union members’ attitudes
towards immigration in Europe
Antonio Martín Artiles, Oscar Molina
(Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 2011 17: 453, DOI:
10.1177/1024258911419752. The full version of this article can be found at:
http://trs.sagepub.com/content/17/4/453)
Summary
The literature identifies three key factors that shape attitudes towards
immigration: socio-economic uncertainty, ideology and the institutional
framework. The aimof this article is to take a closer look at the differences in
trade union members’ attitudes to immigration and the factors that determine
them. We test three hypotheses by addressing three questions. First, what are
the differences between the attitudesof trade unionmembers and nonmemberswith regard to immigration? Second, howare attitudes affected
bymaterial socio-economic variables? Third, howdo different institutional
frameworks and contexts affect trade union members’ attitudes? We
conclude that attitudes can be explained by the interaction between
economic and ideological variables. This has important implications for
trade union strategies geared towards the integration of migrant workers.
Keywords
Attitudes towards immigration, trade union members, economic
uncertainty, ideology
Introduction
Immigration is currently a ‘hot’ topic on the European political agenda
as a result of the perceived large number of immigrants coming to the
continent as well as the eastern enlargement of the EU (European
Commission, 2007). The uncertainty resulting from the economic crisis,
unemployment and cuts in welfare spending has given rise to hostile
attitudes towards immigration among European citizens, and we have
witnessed a growing politicization of immigration as a problem in both the
media and public opinion (Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010; Balch, 2010). At
the same time, however, immigration is necessary to maintain the numbers
of young people entering the labour market in view of Europe’s ageing
population. Furthermore, immigration is needed in order to maintain the
European social model, since it helps to improve the dependency ratio
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between the working population and those who are dependent (Megale,
2010). All these factors have meant that the subject of immigration has also
found its way onto the trade union agenda. The trade unions, however, have
a difficult relationship with this issue, especially in view of the current
economic crisis. Trade unions are class-based organizations and as such
should endeavour to defend the rights of all workers, irrespective of where
they come from or their social and employment situation. Nevertheless,
rank-and-file trade union members do not always support this view, since
they see immigrants as competing with the local population for limited
numbers of jobs and welfare resources. Today, many trade union members
have a hostile attitude towards immigration and are calling for policies to
restrict the number of new immigrants (Cards et al., 2005).
A lot has been written about trade union attitudes towards migrant
workers and immigration policy. Nonetheless, few studies have tackled the
difficult relationship between trade union members and migrant workers,
and as such we consider the present article to be a timely contribution. It is
our aim to take a closer look at the differences in trade union members’
attitudes to immigration and the factors that determine them. In particular,
we shall attempt to analyse the importance of the socio-economic
uncertainty arising from the economic crisis and the extent to which it has
influenced trade union members’ attitudes. We shall address three questions
and hypotheses in this regard. 1) First, what are the differences in the
attitudes of trade union members and nonmembers with regard to
immigration? Our first hypothesis assumes that trade union members will
have more liberal or less hostile attitudes than non-members and can be
expected to support the principle of solidarity owing to the fact that the
European trade union movement is situated on the centre-left of the political
spectrum. 2) Second, how are attitudes affected by material socioeconomic
variables? Our initial hypothesis is that material socio-economic variables
such as unemployment, low pay and financial insecurity can be expected to
have a profoundly negative influence on attitudes towards immigration. 3)
Third, how do different institutional frameworks and contexts affect trade
union members’ attitudes? Our hypothesis here is that institutional
differences with regard to the welfare state, for example higher spending on
social welfare and unemployment benefit, can reduce the level of income
insecurity experienced by families and this can in turn lead to more liberal
attitudes towards immigration.
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The article is divided into three sections. Part I adopts a theoretical and
methodological approach to the subject of the article by presenting a review
of the literature on the relationship between immigration and the trade
unions. Part II analyses the individual material economic variables and
compares the attitudes of trade union members with those of non-members.
Finally, Part III focuses on how attitudes are influenced by contextual and
institutional differences.
Theoretical and methodological analysis
Recent years have seen growing interest in research into attitudes
towards immigration within the EU. The literature proposes a wide variety
of explanations (Balch, 2010). First of all, there are studies that focus on
economic factors such as unemployment, poverty and wages (Cards et al.,
2005). In a similar vein, sociologists have looked at the impact of
immigration and how society reacts to it in terms of whether it creates
competition for objective material conditions in the host society or whether it
acts in a complementary fashion in this regard. These socio-economic
explanations emphasize the weak or insecure position of growing numbers
of workers in postindustrial societies leading to a feeling of vulnerability. A
second set of explanations stress the cultural impact of immigration, i.e. how
attitudes are shaped and the way that immigrants’ image is portrayed vis-a`vis the public. The third approach focuses on ideological and political views
and hostility towards immigration (Saxton and Benson, 2003; Citrin et al.,
2005). A final group of studies emphasizes the impact of labour market
institutions or the welfare state (Mau and Burkhardt, 2009).
Of all these factors, the one that has acquired the greatest importance in
the current context is the perception of socio-economic uncertainty, which
we will define later in this article. The economic crisis is tending to increase
uncertainty and competition for jobs and social welfare resources (Cards et
al., 2005). Research into attitudes towards immigrants tends to adopt as its
main theoretical reference point factors such as competition between the
local population and immigrants for material resources such as jobs, wages
and welfare resources (Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2007, among others).
However, this competition depends on the extent to which different labour
market segments exclude certain social groups and is particularly prevalent
among lowskilled workers (Dolvik and Waddington, 2002).
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Redistributive government social welfare policies help reduce
uncertainty and socio-economic competition (Crouch, 2010). This means
that we might expect people’s perception of uncertainty and security to differ
depending on their country’s social welfare model. The welfare state has
traditionally contributed to social cohesion and solidarity, although this has
always been in the context of a relatively homogeneous population in terms
of ethnicity and nationality (Habermas, 2000). However, the increase in
immigration over the past few decades has given rise to new problems
regarding social inclusion and solidarity as a result of ethnic, cultural and
language differences between residents. Some authors (Mau and Burkhardt,
2009) have concluded that this heterogeneity weakens national identity,
traditional bonds of solidarity and, ultimately, the welfare state throughout
the European Union.
Finally, people’s political views are another factor influenced by the
rise in socio-economic uncertainty (Saxton and Benson, 2003; Citrin et al.,
2005; Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010). Recent election results across a
number of European countries have led to a debate surrounding the relative
importance of political views versus position on the labour market in shaping
attitudes towards immigration. Some authors have suggested that there has
been a shift in working-class voting patterns towards anti-immigration
parties because of the perception that they are in direct competition with
migrant workers. This might lead us to suppose that where the local
population’s social and employment conditions have deteriorated (i.e. where
unemployment is high and the labour market is strongly segmented) there is
likely to be a rise in hostility towards immigrants, accompanied by
fragmentation of the make-up of the working class owing to the abovementioned diversity in workers’ origins, racial background and ethnicity.
The inclusion versus exclusion dilemma
Research into the relationship between the trade unions and
immigration has focused on three aspects. The first is the degree of
organization and trade union membership of migrant workers, who tend to
be employed in the services sector, agriculture and construction, have low
skills levels and perform subcontracted work on temporary contracts with
poor conditions (Schmidt, 2006). In this regard, other studies have analysed
trade union initiatives to regularize the informal work performed by
immigrants in order to prevent the casualization of labour, the informal
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sector and ‘downward pressure’ on working conditions. The situation has
also led the trade unions to campaign against racism and xenophobia (Solé et
al., 2000; Cachón and Vallés, 2003; Marino and Roosblad, 2008; Ambrosini,
2008).
Nonetheless, the aspect that has received most attention from the
research community has been the trade unions’ discourse concerning migrant
workers and immigration policy. A key reference work in this regard is the
seminal study by Castles and Kosack (1973) which elucidated the complex
relationship between the trade unions and immigration. Historically, the
trade unions have been confronted with a dilemma on this issue. On the one
hand, they have supported restrictions on immigrant numbers in order to
ensure that working conditions do not deteriorate for the local workforce. At
the same time, it has also been extremely important for the trade unions to
recruit immigrants as members (Penninx and Roosblad, 2000). Ultimately,
the fact that they have called for restrictions on immigration to prevent
competition with the local population and erosion of working conditions
makes it hardly surprising that immigrants should be rather wary of them.
Indeed, migrant workers have sometimes preferred to form their own,
independent organizations such as the sin papeles (undocumented aliens)
movement (Varela, 2008). Some have even developed negative attitudes
towards the trade unions (Bertone and Griffin, 1992; Pajares, 2008; Jefferys,
2007: 378).
In summary, the underlying reasons for the trade unions’ policy of
supporting immigration controls are especially connected to the phenomenon
of illegal immigration and the resulting downward spiral in conditions in
certain segments of the labour market where it is subsequently difficult to
recuperate previous standards with regard to employment contracts, pay and
working time. Furthermore, massive influxes of migrant workers alter the
size and make-up of the workforce and may weaken the trade unions’
bargaining position (Cards et al., 2005; Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2007).
It might therefore be claimed that the position of the trade unions
oscillates between a brand of economic nationalism and international
working-class solidarity. This should not be seen as a contradiction between
two extremes but rather as two sides of the same coin. According to Cachón
and Vallés (2003: 473), from the post-war years until the 1970s the trade
unions’ position fluctuated between support for immigration controls and
calls for immigrants living in a country to receive equal treatment to the
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local population, sometimes even promoting the organization of immigrants
into multicultural groups within the trade union itself. They also provided
immigrants with induction training and legal advice (Bertone and Griffin,
1992). More recently, since the 1990s, trade union policy on immigration
has centred on establishing legal guarantees, improving working conditions
and equal opportunities (Reyneri and Fullin, 2008; Miguélez and Recio,
2008).
Trade union members’ attitudes towards immigration
However, one of the main failings in the literature on the relationship
between the trade unions and immigration is the lack of attention paid to the
comparative analysis of individual members’ attitudes. Although members’
attitudes are inevitably key to understanding how trade unions’ preferences
and strategies vis-a`-vis immigration are shaped, in practice this aspect has
received very little attention. The collective, class-based dimension has
tended to prevail over the analysis of individual attitudes (Citrin et al., 2005:
859).
Solidarity in post-war Europe was built on the basis of national identity
within the realm of the nation state (Habermas, 2000), and this gave the trade
unions a fundamental collective identity with regard to their actions.
However, immigration has called this collective identity into question,
making it more difficult to achieve solidarity since traditional local trade
union members and the newly-arrived migrant workers do not share the
same national identity (Mau and Burkhardt, 2009). Nevertheless, many
European trade unions today have anti-racism clauses in their statutes or
even pursue policies geared towards integrating immigrants, including
positive actions in favour of certain ethnic minorities.
In view of the above, the aim of this article is to investigate the
attitudes of trade union members in the face of rising socio-economic
uncertainty and inequality. The insecurity arising from the economic crisis
has led to a resurgence of anti-immigration sentiment in Europe and even a
rise in racism (Balch, 2010; Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010). The popular
saying ‘hard times breed hard thoughts’ is a vivid illustration of the hostility
that exists with regard to immigrants (Saxton and Benson, 2003: 102). The
influx of immigrants accompanied by rising unemployment has exacerbated
the competition between the local population and immigrants for jobs and
social welfare resources and has ultimately also increased social tensions and
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